


Quantum Entanglement

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: AU, Amber-verse, Bromance, F/M, Red-verse, time-travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-16
Updated: 2012-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-02 00:37:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Our technology affords us the unique opportunity to travel through time<em> - September, 4:14</em></em>
</p><p> </p><p>Set in amber-verse, travels backward in time to red-verse early season three, mentions blue verse, ends in amber-verse…or that one time Peter Bishop was totally confused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quantum Entanglement

RED-VERSE

2010/.

 

 

The first time Olivia sees him; he’s standing on the opposite side of the street, hands in his pockets, feet widely braced. He’s indifferent to both the passing traffic and the Fringe agents who canvas the area. There’s an intensity to his stare that prickles the back of Olivia’s neck, that makes her slow down and stare straight back, letting Charlie and Lincoln fade into the background, the pen, the homicide they’re investigating put aside for the moment. _See me,_ his posture screams. And Olivia does. Until a passing truck trundles by and he’s lost from view.

When the way is clear, the man is gone.

“Hey,” Lincoln nudges, clapping one hand on Olivia’s shoulder, his smile an upward tilt that hides the worry. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she says automatically, not feeling the words.

Olivia tries to shake the feeling of wrongness, the second guessing that makes her scan the street one last time, looking for a pea-coat and a stubbled jaw line. Anyone is bound to be wobbly on their first day back, she placates, but Olivia’s not ready to say the words to her teammates. She holds the excuse for Frank, who knows better than to accept surface words.

“I’m just fine.”

Charlie follows her line of sight, scanning the opposite side of the road, trusting her even when Olivia’s head is barely unscrambled from the psych evaluations. She relaxes, moving a step further from Lincoln’s regard, and returns her attention to the pen. Every Fringe agent suffers gallows humour but it’s Charlie who makes the three of them work. Gruff and self-deprecating – teasing Olivia, accepting Lincoln’s dorkiness, his two-fingered “BOOMS”, his goofy grin. Charlie’s presence is solid. _I’ve missed you_ , Olivia thinks unbidden, smile genuine as he shoulder-bumps her in passing.

 

***

 

The first time Peter sees her, he’s in an Observer’s house, amongst newspaper clippings and a strange cylinder that glows a warning blue; that vibrates at unusual frequencies. It happens directly after Peter’s thrown across the room, the current cresting through his body like a breaking wave. The house fluctuates; the worn carpet shifts beneath his feet, becomes bitumen instead.

It’s chaotic, dark with gunfire.

The night explodes with flame.  The concussion a resounding shock, like touching the cylinder for the first time ( _I’m afraid I cannot do it myself_ , September warned, his voice lyrical).  It blows Peter backward five feet. When his vision clears, he’s standing in a suburban warzone.  The grand theatre is littered with broken glass, over turned cars lie in the street, bodies strewn at awkward angles. He watches, voiceless, as Olivia Dunham is dragged away, as William Bell’s shaken awake by Liv, her twin, and escorted into the building.

It’s the moment he missed. Peter spent it inside the theatre with Walter, connecting the wires that would bring them safely home; a doppelganger nestled amongst their ranks. It’s her, _his_ Olivia, in the wrong place, further back in time, and Peter’s already struggling forward to _reach_ when he’s snapped back, flung into his body like an over-stretched elastic band.

He awakes sprawled across the floor.

The carpet is a floral pattern, the type popular in houses from the fifties. It’s walls, once painted china white and now - in the places where it is visible between the newspaper clippings - an eggshell yellow. The hairs on his arms stand on end, heartbeat galloping as if he’s run a mile a minute. He feels bruised without any evidence of it, his body unmarked. The cordite which clung to the air has vanished, leaving the closed-in scent of a house barely lived in.

The newspaper clippings stir. The edges rattle in an invisible breeze, closing inward like butterfly wings.

Peter lets his eyes drift over the Titanic, over blubber sales in 1884, and comes to a rest on a short passage from 1987, a footnote in an old newspaper about a nine year old shooting her stepfather in the face. His wristwatch has come to a stop at 1:02 pm. The afternoon sun, wan, illuminates the motes as they spin lazily.

Peter pushes upright onto his elbows and regards the cylinder warily.

It was her, his Olivia, lost and brainwashed into believing all the wrong things. Peter’s seen the reports, hacked the computers in those dark months when Olivia wouldn’t speak to him. He knows the broad-strokes of what was done to her, of the alienation and fear that drove her to keep running, striving to find a way home.

 _You were the only thing that got me through,_ she had whispered, pale, half awake on a hospital bed, before she knew the ugly truth. He wasn’t. Olivia got herself through it because no one else was going to save her.

Peter was sleeping with her doppelganger and making house, thinking about small steps that would lead to big steps, of breakfast in bed, Sunday cross-words, of laughter and sleepy sex, of waking up each morning with her scent on his skin.

He swipes at his forearms, the motion irritable. His clothing remains un-smudged, the evidence of what he’d witnessed a mere suggestion.

He remembers the way they kissed, noses squished together, no space between them; the way she stood in the rain when Peter realised what he’d done, what he was doing to her, all over again. He pushes the emotion away until the clutch of _sick/angry/panic,_ that’s been with him since he broke the surface of Reiden Lake, retreats.

He staggers to his feet and circles the room.

One hand scrubs through the shorthairs on his nape as he takes stock of the house. Three chairs are located at the kitchen table, the furniture hand-crafted, the wood smooth as ivory. A loaf of bread, suspiciously green in areas, sits on the cutting board. The fridge is filled with jugs of cold water and nothing else, the cupboard stocked with jalapenos. A trail of ants’ march purposefully, moving from the loaf of bread to the window in single-file, carrying stolen crumbs on their backs.

Peter pats down his pockets and pulls his cell loose. The plastic’s melted, the circuitry fried.

There’s one bedroom in the house, the wardrobe stocked with blue suits, size forty-two, no brand on the lapel. Seven fedoras are lined up neatly in the cupboard. The landline, when he does find it, is straight from the seventies, a round face dial with finger hooks. He twirls the number impatiently, the cradle caught between his ear and shoulder, and flinches when he realises who he’s calling. Peter drops the phone before the call’s connected, before he can hear her voice.

He takes an unsteady breath, tries Colonel Broyles instead.

The last time he saw the cylinder there was a body count attached, and its presence makes him uneasy. Peter watches the light pensively, half-expecting it to zap him again or explode into the ground. The call to Broyles goes to voice-mail. He drums his fingers against his jeans, waits for the beep, and says tersely. “This is Peter Bishop. I’m going to need a science recovery team at a possible Observer residence, with armed escort.” He rattles the address off and hangs up the phone, his mouth turning laconic as he considers his options. The third time he places a call, Lincoln answers immediately.

“Agent Lee.”

“Hey. Is Walter there?” There’s an audible pause. He gets the impression the younger man is pacing away, putting space between himself and whoever else is in the lab.

“He’s working with Olivia,” Lincoln says cautiously.

Peter’s hand tightens on the plastic. He stares out the window blindly and thinks _Of course._ “How is she?”

“Do you care?”

“Lay off. How _is_ she?” Peter waits a second, two then says mildly. “Or would you prefer for me to come within proximity and find out for myself?”

“She’s scared,” Lincoln says harshly. “She’s losing her memories. How do you _think_ she’s feeling?”

Go away, get home so Olivia can be herself again is threaded through every second word. The only problem is, Peter doesn’t know if it’s him or Lincoln feeling it. Or both. He imagines the redhead who crawled out of the tank, all those memories pressed upon her mind unwillingly, and whispers. “Sorry.”  He can’t stop thinking about the past, the revulsion in Olivia’s eyes as she sat in the garden and said they were through.

“Nina’s here,” Lincoln adds unexpectedly. His tone has shifted, sounding tired, older than he should. “We’re trying to remind her of things unique to our timeline. Astrid, Walter, Nina, myself.” Peter’s notably absent from the list.

“Right,” he says. “Good. That’s… Have you found Rachel?”

“Out of town. Her and Ella both.”

The information is more than Peter thought he’d receive. He can hear Walter’s turntable in the background, Credence harping on about _A Bad Moon Rising._ “You’ll look after her?”

“Always.” Peter nods, even if it has no effect. The cylinder is an event Walter would have conniptions over normally, except the entire lab has more pressing concerns and he’s reluctant to take the focus away from Olivia. He’s about to settle with Colonel Broyles when Lincoln asks. “Peter, why’d you call?”

“Just checking in. Thank you.” He adds, awkwardly, and hangs up before he has to explain further. From the other room, the cylinder hums. He saw her when he touched that thing. He’d been thrown halfway across the room as a result – as if shot point-blank by an Observer’s weapon - his skin tingling; breath still erratic, but he’d seen her.

He runs his fingertips over the newspaper clippings, pushing them aside thoughtfully only to discover more beneath, as if the Observer had run out of viable space and started pasting one clipping on top of the other, until they ran three deep. August had a fascination with both the sea-faring shipping trades of old and with Christina Hollis.

Whoever’s house Peter is in, whatever their designation, the Observer has a fascination with the Second World War.  And Olivia Dunham.

 

***

 

“Here,” Lincoln says, and hands over a Styrofoam cup, contents still steaming. “Not chicken soup I’m afraid.” He ducks his head guilelessly, meeting her eyes until Olivia smiles, until her fingers press lightly against his in thanks.

She accepts the coffee, careful not to tear the wires from her forehead and says without prompting. “Walter is checking for a secondary brain-wave pattern.”

“I thought he did that already, when Peter was here?”

“Peter _not_ being here is the point.” 

And if Walter’s reduced to repeating the same experiment…Olivia cuts the thought off before it can take further hold.

“How are you _really_ feeling?”

“Like a Gordian knot.”

The coffee’s black with too many sugars. It’s been three days since the kidnapping, since Olivia realised she was losing pieces of herself, the cost inexplicably high.  The day after, blind panic had her running to Walter for help, raging with the certainty she didn’t want to feel _any_ of it if it wasn’t hers to keep.  She’s run the gauntlet from confusion, elation, terror to despair in a dizzying span of time. Olivia doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring; but fears what she’s left with, is spiralling out of control. 

“I’m angry.”  It’s the one emotion she wants to hang onto. “I burnt my toast this morning.”

“I can see how that would be upsetting.”

It wasn’t in the toaster, Olivia doesn’t reveal. She turns the cup in her hands and feels her stomach turn leaden when Lincoln adds diffidently “You can beat this, Olivia, you can beat these memories. You’re _stronger_ than her.”  As if they’re not one and the same, as if Olivia’s possessed.  

When they were together it felt natural, Olivia didn’t question it.  She’s had three days to second-guess her own certainty, sharing her mind with a specter.  She’s travelled from knowing Peter was hers, to wanting to forget him entirely, to this...twilight. 

She watches the coffee bubble in its cup; the rapid on/off flicker of the laboratory lights running down the length of the room. Near the computer screen, Walter looks up sharply, his mouth turning unhappy.

“All you have to do is hold on,” Lincoln’s voice is soft, his belief in her evident. “And there are things here worth holding on to.”  He’s trying to be comforting with his string of platitudes.

Olivia resents the concern, the same way she resents Peter’s hesitation and her own confusion.  Each word meant to disarm her only sets the anger to ticking, wanting to strike outward with her collateral damage.

“Nina adopted Rachel and I when I was twelve, Rachel was ten. Older kids are harder to place in foster care, keeping them together almost impossible, especially when one of the children has _murdered_ an adult.”

She watches the way he stiffens at her choice of word.  Self-defence is viable, except her stepfather didn’t lay a hand on her that night, self-defence is optional, except Olivia shot him point-blank the moment he opened the door. He never had a chance to defend himself, a look of boredom on his face before his expression smeared, became red, bone, and brain. Olivia was nine. Lincoln doesn’t look accepting, except there’s a part of him encouraging her to remember the timeline, however she chooses to relate it.  He nods once, eyes wide behind his glasses.

Olivia takes a breath. She turns her gaze to the back of the computer monitor and wonders what it’s revealing, if Walter can read between the lines and discover the truth.

“Being adopted by a multi-millionaire is unheard of unless you’re living in a Disney fantasy. From age twelve, Lincoln, I’ve never lacked for anything. I had the best education, the most expensive schools. I was placed in Fringe division at Nina’s behest. I have friends here, and I wouldn’t change that, I don’t want to lose it.”

“I know. You’re not going to.” He has enough sense to leave out _I promise._

She can remember the first horse Nina gave her, the way her thighs tightened around Gabe’s girth, smooth muscle flowing from canter into half-pass, his body movement forward and at the angle - ears pricked attentively, forelegs high - before slowing into piaffe. Olivia recalls looking over her shoulder for Nina’s reaction the first time Gabe responded.  The days of practice and grooming, of doing it and doing it _again_ until they perfected capriole. She still has the ribbons at home, the hallmarks of dressage, the ancient skills of warfare.

She lingers on the knowledge, the memory of Nina’s smile, the pride in Nina’s expression filling her up, because Olivia’s loved and she’s been loved dearly.

But it came at another persons’ expense. Someone told her once, reality was a matter of perception.

“I wasn’t lying when I said people hesitate to adopt a girl with attempted _manslaughter_ on her case-file. Rachel and I were separated in foster care; it’s why we’re so close. She went to a good home and I didn’t. I went to College on a military scholarship and I worked for it, Lincoln, every moment, every second, because there were no free rides. I met Peter Bishop four years ago, and I know what it is to fight. Who is it, Lincoln, that I’m supposed to be _stronger_ than? Who’s had the tougher life?”

“Olivia.”

Olivia waits until she realizes Lincoln doesn’t know what to say, all of his platitudes run dry. The lights pop overhead, glass falling like fine mist, the anger/hurt coiling like a serpent.

“Boy,” Walter calls loudly. “You should come over here immediately.” He has a way of speaking in an exaggerated whisper. If Walter did try to lower his volume it’s useless, Olivia’s hearing kicked in twenty-four hours ago. She could hear the ticking of a bomb in a two-storey building if she concentrated. “You’re supposed to be reminding her of _this_ time,” Walter hisses accusingly. “Not provoking the other memories! I understand three months give you less stories to work with than the rest of us, but are you completely useless?”

Lincoln ignores the insult, his jaw working with tension. He stares at the printout.  “Is there a different brain-wave emerging?”

“No, it’s just Olivia. Being Olivia. But there has to be a reason for the false memories.”

“Beyond spinning heads and possession?”

“Empathy,” Walter corrects. “It’s always been empathy with Olivia.  Although projectile vomiting is a possibility.”

“Are you wrong?” Lincoln asks before he can retract it. Walter stiffens but doesn’t answer, gaze fixed on the monitor as Nina takes the stool beside Olivia, their heads bent close. He watches the two women talk, how Nina turns her hand over, rubbing the fine bones near Olivia’s wrist. The older woman’s eyes are bright even in the dim lighting, her smile tumultuous, sad and agitated. “Maybe it’s not Peter doing this to her?”

“It’s a multi-verse,” Walter says eventually. “Infinite possibilities, infinite variations. I posit Peter comes from a different reality, like Walternate and the others, a third reality _co-existing_ beside ours. I posit he wants to go home and I posit his people are searching for him; _his_ Olivia is searching for him. Our Olivia is sensing that, inadvertently feeling the focus, the intensity, and translating the yearning into something she can understand.” He sounds certain.

Walter’s hand shakes once, a fine tremor before he tucks it under his armpit.

Broyles enters the room briskly. 

Lincoln turns around at the sound of the door opening. “And the opposite argument?” For a moment he doesn’t think Walter will reply. His face looks grey in the light, eyes hooded. When he does speak, his words are sharp, a staccato rat-a-tat-tat.

“Then _this_ is his home. Olivia’s ability allows her to see the truth of the old timeline. If Peter succeeds in returning ‘home’ we in our current form cease to exist, and whatever event my son derailed in the future, will become a liability again.” 

A war between the two worlds.

“I don’t really like that theory,” Lincoln decides quietly.

“If it’s true, then I allowed my son to sacrifice himself, in order to save _us_.” Walter looks up finally. “Believe me, Agent Lee, I like the theory even less than you.”

 _Walternate was different here,_ Peter had confessed after the debriefing, a bottle of whiskey standing between them in some seedy bar in a part of town Lincoln had never visited. He was on the edge of tipsy, Peter flat-out sober, but more talkative than Lincoln had seen him, more animated. They were celebrating being alive, pressed close to humanity, an array of television screens showing sports coverage and a single station set to CBS news.

 _Weird, knowing I was alive, knowing I was alive and being raised by someone **else,** that he was missing out on the little-leagues and graduation and whatever else parents give a fuck about, made Walternate more twisted than the certainty I was dead and lost to him. He’s not bitter here, that’s the difference,_ Peter said tiredly, and tilted his drink, sank it in one harsh swallow. _Me being dead meant he actually grieved, he learnt to move on_.

Walter’s arm tightens across his chest, hugging himself as he confesses. “If it means I willingly forgot my own son, then I need to believe my theory is correct.”

 _I thought I was home when I first arrived here_ , Peter’s smile had turned lopsided _. I was certain of it, but I guess in the end, the best lies are the ones we tell ourselves._

“I know.” Lincoln squeezes Walter’s shoulder, sees the doubt in his eyes, the second-guessing and wonders if they’ve all become paralysed, too many options and no clear answers. Olivia stares at them, her face unreadable.

“How is she?” Broyles asks, as soon as he’s within speaking range.

Olivia’s eyes narrow dangerously, as if the particular phrase has her tilting toward homicide.  Walter shrugs. “Jones managed to activate her abilities. It would seem Olivia is having difficulty turning them off.”

“Is she in danger?”

“No. Agitated, understandably.”

“And tired of being talked about as if I’m not in the room.” Olivia ignores Nina’s protest. She peels the wires off one at a time and stands up, smoothing her office shirt down, attention bearing down on Broyles. “You have a case?”

“Jacksonville, Florida,” Broyles provides smoothly. “And to be honest, I thought I’d send Agent Lee.”

Olivia feels her stomach tighten, tendrils of _want_ slithering down her spine.  It’s been three days, if Walter hasn’t found a way to stop the slippage by now, then his ability to reverse whatever is happening to her is slim.  

“I’ll go.” She sees the protest forming and says ruthlessly. “It’s further away from Peter’s presence. Astrid’s known me longer than Lincoln.  She knows what to look for in terms of a Fringe case and any oddities I might display. She’s the better partner to accompany me, and I need to work.  That hasn’t changed.”

“If Olivia goes, then I go, too,” Walter insists. “I would feel better if I could keep an eye on her.”

Lincoln looks upward at the broken lights, the exploded bulbs. “Would it be too forward to say: I don’t like the idea of you being in a charter plane at the moment?”

“He has a point.” Broyles concurs.

Astrid comes into view.  Olivia feels her throat tighten.  She can remember Friday drinks, stress relief, tipsy laughter; opposite that, she can remember holding Astrid in the highest esteem without knowing the first thing about her personal life.  Olivia spent Friday nights by herself, with case files spread across the kitchen table and a glass of wine, later, she would spend them with Peter.

If Olivia’s choices have dwindled, incapable of feeling the intensity of her friendships like she once could, then her only recourse is to rebuild the same relationship.  She admits slowly. “I haven’t been sleeping much. Walter can put me under for the duration of the flight. I’d probably appreciate it.”

Broyles looks down at the folders in his hand. “I’m afraid that’s not all. Peter found an Observer residence.”

Lincoln stirs.  “Where is he?”

“Andover.” When everyone in the immediate circle looks toward Olivia she says calmly. “I can feel him from here.”  He’s a solid presence in the back of her mind, bruised and familiar, hurting, the same as she is.

“You,” Broyles points immediately. “Go to Jacksonville. Agent Lee…”

“Andover.”  He’s staring at her.  “On it.”

“An evidence removal unit is on its way with science specialists.  They should meet you there within the hour.”

“Should I be concerned?”

“Whatever Bishop found, he seemed a little wary.”

 

***

 

The cylinder glows a steady blue. Peter can feel the static electricity when he’s standing within three feet of it.

He has two articles in front of him, taken off the wall and placed on the table side-by-side, rather than buried under each other.  One, where Olivia Dunham shoots her stepfather twice in the chest, and another, where a single shot ended in a fatality.  In both cases, the newspaper was kind enough to keep her identity hidden.  The photographs are suppressed; the paragraph consists of exactly ten lines.

There’s a polite knock on the front door before a voice calls out. “Bishop?”

“Back here.”

Lincoln pokes his head around the corner and spots him at the kitchen table. “And to think I rushed. Broyles said you asked for armed escort, and here you are, casual as Goldilocks.”

Peter squints at him. “That’s a disturbing allegory, and I didn’t sleep in their beds.”

“But you picked their front door.  Observer house?”  Lincoln steps fully into the room, scanning the mundane furniture before he zeroes in on the cylinder.  “It’s a little more boring than I thought it would be.”

“Well, there’s seven party hats upstairs.”

“More interested in the phallic representation.”

Peter’s mouth quirks, increasingly amused. “The guys in your squad must have had a field day with you.”

Lincoln has to work to keep his face straight. Despite their opposing opinions he’s glad to see Peter, relieved to see the other man in one piece. He circles the cylinder, trying to see it from all angles.

“Don’t touch it,” Peter warns.

Lincoln drops into a squat, eye-level with the object.  He desperately wants to touch it. “What does it do?”

“It explodes underground, zaps people unexpectedly, and most exciting of all, vibrates.”

“No wonder you want to run away with it.” Lincoln glances sideways, taking in the dishevelled clothes and the clammy skin. “A team will be here soon to sweep the house and remove anything interesting. By the way, how long ago did you touch it?”

“What makes you think I did?”

“You look freshly molested,” Lincoln retorts dryly.

“About one-ish.”

“Any side effects?”

“Visions and a powerful headache.”

He nods and stands upright, head tilted as he listens to the oppressive silence. “The house is creepy.”

“You don’t like the Observers?”

Lincoln shrugs. “Any possible future consisting solely of overly white, balding, males is a questionable one if you ask me.”

“Possible future,” Peter repeats slowly, his eyes drifting over the walls again, over world war two, the rise of neo-Nazism in England, apartheid in South Africa and human rights violations of indigenous populations in America, Australia and other colonised countries, of realities that keep shifting each time the Observers interfere.

He thinks about what he saw when he first touched the cylinder, a truth he hadn’t witnessed before, of Olivia being replaced by a doppelganger. Of September’s strange admission to Walter - in a timeline that no longer exists - that he wasn’t allowed to touch it.

“When’s the team arriving?”

“Soon. What are you plotting?”

“Can you make sure I don’t kill myself?”

Lincoln stares at him dubiously. “That was rhetorical, I presume?”

He’s been stuck in a Venus flytrap, unable to move forward or back until he can figure out one (not-so-easily answered) question. Is this home? Find the truth of that first, then deal with whatever mess he’s actually in. Peter will gladly find out who shot September and _why,_ if he can just find Olivia first…

If he can be sure he’s not hurting her.

The ache runs bone deep because he thought he saw her in the gas station.  Felt it, wanted it, saw it reflected in her eyes.  Peter believed it so deeply he stumbled, would have buried himself in her and just breathed.  Slow kisses, everything inside settled, finally safe. Noses, foreheads, torso’s twisted, hands and fingers entwined, no space between them. 

The only home Peter found was constructed by bone and flesh.  He’s never needed the trappings of a particular ‘place’, he’d follow Olivia across worlds if she asked.

Certain.  Until Walter, Lincoln, and the Observer arrived on the scene, and everything was thrown in question, all the voices saying it wasn’t recognition motivating him but his own internalized con-man, and he can’t trust himself because they’re right, _they have been right_.  Peter doesn’t know, but he knows for certain he saw her when he touched this thing - one moment in time when their emotions reflected each other perfectly – quantum entanglement and the call to go home.

He’s too young to have a heart attack.  His tolerance for electrical stimuli might be abnormally low but the itch is there, pushing him forward until he drops to his knees.  He slides onto his stomach and ignores Lincoln’s wordless noise of surprise.

The cylinder is a cloud of angry bees, a hum that warns, warns, and warns dangerously. The second time he touches the cylinder, safe on the floor, it’s like a supernova went off in his skull. His heart seizes then thumps laboriously. The world goes white, white, turns blue-grey; traffic noise rushes in like a steamroller.

The second time he sees her, Peter’s not expecting Olivia to notice.

There’s the width of a street between them, the siren-call of emergency services wailing in the background, humanity presses and flows around him, not stopping for the spectacle of death. Olivia does. She stops, hair dyed red, bangs in her eyes. She picks him out of the crowd the same way a sea-eagle spots a silver flash beneath the waves.

From across the road, she stares right back.

 

***

 

“You’re not real.” Is her first defence. Olivia watches out of the corner of her eye, as if full contact would be an admission of madness.

Real is debatable. Peter knows he’s not solid. Dimly, he’s aware that his body has arched, turned rigid, whatever image he’s projecting to Olivia is nothing but studied nonchalance. It’s about getting himself home, Peter tells himself, holding onto her coattails until he knows where home is, except it’s not, it’s about Olivia. It’s about being there for her when he wasn’t; it’s about helping her find a way, because he can do this one little thing for her, even if he can’t do it for himself.

“Real is just a matter of perception. I am here. And I’m the part of you that you have to hold onto. You can’t forget who you are Olivia. You can’t forget where you’re from. You can’t forget this.” He kisses her softly, his wounded hand, the ridged scar, cupping her jaw line.

“You’re not real,” she insists brokenly. And yeah, presenting himself as a lover when there’s questionable memory involved? Isn’t something Peter would be buying either.

He changes his approach accordingly.

 

 

 

RED-VERSE

2010/.

 

It’s the Secretary’s son Olivia sees first, followed by the Secretary himself, and while her memories of Peter Bishop are raw, on the surface of her thoughts, Olivia doesn’t grasp why she would see the most powerful man on Earth standing in an overly large hoodie, his face crumbling, bisected with joyful sadness.

She can feel her mind reject Walter Bishop - because the Secretary doesn’t slouch, doesn’t smile - he doesn’t stand lost amongst scattered school tables. Olivia pushes Secretary Bishop out, away, and he never does come back, banished from her bruised mind and its barbed-wire fences

His son, though, is like a bad penny she can’t get rid of.

Olivia’s first and last memory of Peter Bishop is driving him home. Olivia stood in his state-of-the-art apartment with its comic books lined on the walls, and listened to him describe her double. She had watched him in the car, where he had wavered between sarcasm and moments of painful silence, gaze fixed out the window. It’s the only memories she has of Peter, and she was intrigued, a little curious; a lot assessing.  Olivia remembers her double breaking into her apartment, the black maw of her gun pointed at Olivia’s face as she asked where Peter was, after that, her memories begin to fudge.

She doesn’t remember Peter being a smart-assed little shit, though.

He paces alongside while walking backward. He smirks at her, pops up unexpectedly like a ghost and vanishes again just as suddenly. There’s a certain tease in his eyes that should be entirely out-of-place - as if talking, interacting, speaking with Olivia - is the one place he wants to be, as if in a perverse fashion, Peter’s enjoying every second of their time together. He reminds Olivia of things she doesn’t know, he pokes and prods, he speaks of Ella, and _Ella, she thinks, oh god, Ella_. He kisses her soft, one palm cupped under her chin, his whole body titled toward her. She can feel the ridged lines of a new scar bisecting his palm – and it’s a detail she shouldn’t notice - except when she opens her eyes, it’s Frank who stands inside the room. There’s no one kissing her, no thumb stroking her cheek tenderly.

He leans against the desk at headquarters, shoulder-to-shoulder with Lincoln, both of their forearms crossed, identical eyebrows quirked. Olivia almost goes cross-eyed trying to ignore them.

It feels real, _he feels real_ , more real than the world Olivia’s walking, proximity an ache that resonates between them, that cries home, home, you have to go home. She’s trying, with every atom in her being.

She slips out of the shower on a long weekend when Frank is away to find him watching, except the tease is absent from his eyes, replaced by brittle tension.

“They know,” Peter says. “You have to leave, Olivia. Now.”

Her own memories returned in dribs and drabs.  They crept through her dreams, it wasn’t some titanic rush that assailed her, they stole into her mind quiet as sleeping children, lay down one beside the other in rows. She knows Peter is on the other side with Walter and her doppelganger, and because Olivia’s alone, because she’s talking to a projection of her own mind she whispers. “Why do you act differently? _Smug_?”

“Would you have believed me more easily if I said I loved you?” His eyes are dark. Olivia stares at their reflected images, his voice turns soft as he adds. “Would you have believed a perfect stranger quoting your life back at you?”

“No.” She wouldn’t have trusted it as far as she could throw it. Not when all the voices around her, when her own memories, said otherwise.

“No,” he agrees. The humour becomes self-mocking. “My mother was big on catch phrases. Treat people how you want to be treated was one of her favourites, which, when you think about it, is just another way of saying, whatever’s visited upon you will be visited upon others in return. Let’s just say I’m a natural liar.”

He doesn’t look smug, he looks as lost as she does, and she thinks, startled, neither of those phrases were her mothers, and she thinks, urgently, _you’ve never lied to me_. Call me sweetheart one more time, Olivia hears herself say, long ago in a different reality. When she turns around, hair dripping, arms chilled, he’s gone. He never does come back.

Twenty-four hours later – Olivia jumps between worlds.

The small hope she carried with her, the belief Olivia had to go home because she was needed, irreplaceable, shatters like a dream the moment Peter tells her the truth about the doppelganger.

 

***

 

AMBER-VERSE

PRESENT:

 

It’s only a two and a half hour flight from Boston to Florida. Olivia opens her eyes at the forty-five minute mark, instantly awake.

Astrid notices and says with forced cheerfulness. “I hope you’re feeling calm, because honestly, I don’t want the plane’s cockpit to be fried at thirty-thousand feet.”

“I’m singing in the rain,” Olivia deadpans, and rubs her thumb absently over her right palm, mimicking the scar she found on Peter’s hand, only three days ago.  She’s calm, steadier than she’s been in days.  “Do you have the case-file on Lacrosse?”

“Here.” Astrid hands it over along with a small bottle of water. “Walter said I should drug you if you awoke mid-flight, right before he took three Valium and fell asleep.”

Olivia breaks the seal on the water and tilts her head. “You don’t seem to be brandishing needles.”

“I thought I’d take your own assessment into consideration. Then stress I really don’t want to die in a plane crash.”

“Fair enough.”  The tension eases from her shoulders.  Her mouth feels awfully dry, but it’s the first time Olivia’s awoken without a headache in days. Her memory has crystallised, the competing timeline relegated to second-hand knowledge, like reading a biography.  She regards Astrid, a small smile curving her mouth, and thinks about Friday drinks.  “Noted. Don’t blow the FBI budget by crashing their plane. Astrid…” she pauses, uncertain how to voice it, someone she loves once said reality was a matter of perception, what we choose to focus on as important as what we choose to forget, or forgive.  Olivia’s led two lives, one more closed off than the other, one filled with friendships deserving of continuation, both contain a man, who in some small part, gave her the ability to pick, who’s now more alone than Olivia ever was.  

Olivia chooses to make room.  “Thank you, for agreeing to come.”

Astrid stares at her quizzically, her smile sunny bright.  “You’re welcome.”  Astrid takes the seat beside her, the victim dossiers on her lap, and peers over Olivia’s shoulder to read from the suspect pool. “Anthony Lacrosse, age 32. He grew up in Gainesville…”

She’s not scared.  Olivia knows who she is, she doesn’t need to explain herself to anyone. Olivia can chase Peter across realities but a person deceived won’t accept the truth outright. Sometimes, the louder you try to convince them, the harder they look in the opposite direction.

She’s made her choice, said it aloud, and Olivia’s done with chasing Peter.  She knows from experience - when certainty’s been stripped away - all that’s needed is the luxury, the space, to find the truth on her own terms. And if lucky, whomever Olivia’s with loves her enough and is patient enough to wait.  Never forcing the issue or demanding an immediate answer. Never belittling her emotions.

 _You were there_ , she thinks wonderingly, thumb against palm, pressing against an invisible scar, and feels the warmth rush through her. _You were right there all along_.

Walter snores lightly, his neck craned at an awkward angle, mouth half open.

 

***

 

“Easy.”

There’s a hand planted in the centre of his chest, fingers kneading the shirt until it bunches. Opening his eyes hurts.  He feels like he’s been pulled apart atom by atom then reassembled in an unruly heap. His heartbeat struggles, skips a beat, crashes like an overturned drum-kit. Peter forces one eye open and squints at the upside down face.

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Lincoln asks, his voice turning strident, his mouth a tight line.

All in all, Peter preferred the ‘easy’. At least it was pitched at a lower volume. “I wasn’t tying a cinderblock around my waist,” he slurs nonsensically.

Lincoln stares at him. “Well, that’s a sterling endorsement. Can you sit up?”

Peter has the feeling he was dragged away by his feet, his shirt is rucked halfway up his chest and he’s sure there’s carpet burns on his abdomen. The cylinder hums maliciously, positioned eight feet away, and he thinks with a lurch _I didn’t see her cross, I wasn’t there when it mattered_. “Wasn’t finished…”

“You touch it again, and I really _will_ let you die.”

“No you won’t.”

“Of course I will. I’d slide right over your corpse and into Olivia’s waiting arms,” Lincoln says sarcastically. “The fact she remembered you from a _different timeline_ wouldn’t be an obstacle at all.”

Peter coughs. “This world can’t get any more awkward, can it?”

The hand on his shirt rolls into a fist, before the fingers stretch out and rest lightly on his torso. Lincoln pulls him into a sitting position, more gently than expected, hands shifting to forearm and opposite shoulder to hold Peter steady. “What did the cylinder do?”

“Showed me the past.  Something I hadn’t seen before.”

“So, you’re Al to its Ziggy?”

Peter does a double take, breath hitching in what would have been a laugh if he had the air for it. “I’m not sure if I’m more mortified because you made the reference, or because I know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m a versatile geek. Did it help?”

Peter opens his mouth then shuts it, blinking owlishly.  He’d seen Olivia through fresh eyes, seen how she fights, holds on, finds her way back to those she loves despite the odds every single time.  Olivia’s always been three steps ahead.  Peter can feel her, the only place he’s ever belonged, and feels like banging his head against a brick wall.

The newspaper clippings flutter, one on top of the other.

“Fuck,” he mutters, with a kind of despairing horror. “This world sucks.”

 

***

 

EPILOGUE

 

It takes Olivia, Astrid, and Walter a week to track down Anthony Lacrosse. He’s a cortexiphan kid. The showdown occurs in the Day-care centre, ironically, Olivia’s bullets rendered useless against him.

Instead the power humming through her veins, from the moment Jones took Peter, lashes to the surface. She kills Lacrosse before he kills Walter. Olivia never even draws her weapon.

When she’s crouched in a blackened room, a fever beneath her skin making her eyes glow amber, it’s Astrid who hunches in front of her and says solemnly. “I think you should know, the only death worse than falling from the sky, is being burnt alive. I’m not leaving. So I think you should take a deep breath and calm down.”

Astrid doesn’t touch her. Balanced on her haunches, body set directly in front of Olivia, she doesn’t break eye contact. Olivia forces it down, because there's more than one person in this world she cares about, who matters, and Olivia has every intention of holding on to the things she momentarily lost. For the first time in her life, she’s determined to be patient.

In the following days Olivia wanders around the borders of Jacksonville.  She can sense Peter on the periphery of her awareness, but Olivia doesn’t call.

She talks to Lincoln instead, nightly check-ins where they exchange case information. She knows the boys are investigating the Observers in earnest; that they get along together terrifyingly well.  She listens on her cell, sharing a root-beer float with Walter, or the dirtiest hole-in-the-wall restaurant Astrid can find, and thinks the tentative friendship formed between the boys can only be good for Peter.  Neither one of them – Olivia decides, not her _or_ Peter - is so isolated. Their worlds branching out to include more than one.   

Peter has a working theory September’s ability to see a supposed timeline ‘correctly’ was compromised – that they were being fed wrong information to begin with, and September saw something he wasn’t supposed to see - (namely, the truth) – and was shot because of it.

“I hate that theory,” Lincoln says over the phone, darkly. “If the Observers are killing their own, trying to _hide_ something…then I really hate that theory. Are you flying back soon?”

“Might be a couple more days,” Olivia says absently. “Squashing some inter-agency issues with the local LEOs.”

Lincoln grunts noncommittally. “Okay, take care,” and hangs up.

Olivia finds her old place, the military housing exact replicas of each other, except for the spark of individuality on her front door, the red paint peeling away in strips. Olivia drives past it slowly, watching a young girl squeal on the front lawn, racing barefoot under the sprinkler.

She parks the car and steps outside, letting the warmth of the sun turn her bones loose, each long stride taking her over the hill, finding the overgrown track by route and memory. She falls asleep in a field, to the distant sound of a girl’s laughter, ringing brightly through the air. She can feel him, across realities, over timelines, her fingers hooked into his mind, refusing to let go. She can feel him, coming close.  _I’m not scared_ , he told her when he was seven. Olivia breathes out, somnolent, half asleep, and imagines a better world, where he believes it, where he says I love you, where he takes the same chance she does.  She falls asleep, ears attuned to the quiet fall of footsteps as they steadily approach.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a healthy dose of fantasy running through this story, so if you made it thus far, thank you for reading. 3:03 (The Plateau) is heavily referenced, with dialogue written by Allison Schapker and Monica Owusu-Breen appearing in part.
> 
> Special thanks to norgbelulah for beta-duties.


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